Freedom to Move
by ScarredMusic
Summary: A young girl with a mysterious aura and strange powers does whatever she can to prevent certain events from happening. She waits for 'her' Shepard to return, attracting the attention of Cerberus whenever she can while slipping through their fingertips.
1. Prelude

Freedom to Move

A young girl stands poised on the edge of a roof, two storeys above the hard concrete of an old abandoned street. She rocks back on to one foot and with a sharp intake of breath, her body snaps into action, clearing the void below. Her fingertips hook the bottom edge of an adjacent balcony; hand-over-hand she climbs the railing, finding footholds where none appear to exist. She vaults neatly over the top of the rail and disappears into the shadows.

They have lost her once again.

Night and night again she would disappear from their grasps. They know she knows why they want her. Why wouldn't she? She is special, she is unique…

She is a jumper.

She had jumped from her own time, 2014, into the year 2183. And they want her for their own little experiments. They want her power, and will do anything to get it.

So she runs. She runs and she jumps, she climbs and she vaults. For she knows the events that will come into play in the year 2185, she knows what must be done. After all, she has already played the game. She has already made the choices, over and over again. She played the game so many times, that the details of each mission, each conversion was engraved into her mind. So she would wait, and she would plan until the time would come for her to join them. She waited for the time that _she _would return.

Commander Nayera Azalea Shepard.

It would be awhile before she would return. Two years to wait. She couldn't wait until then. She had spent her time watching the people that Nayera once had on her team, the ones that will once again join her, and the ones who would be joining her for the first time.

She watched Garrus, watched as he returned to the Citadel to begin Spectre training, and the events that followed those choices. She watched Liara, watched as she gave Nayera's body to Cerberus and watched as she became an Information Broker. She watched Tali, watched as she returned to her people, watched as she grew into her own person.

She didn't watch Ashley. Why would she? She had always hated Ashley and Kaiden, hated Ashley only the smudge less than Kaiden and that had saved her life. So she left Ashley to her own life. But in the future, she would interfere.

She watched Thane. She watched Grunt grow in his little tank. She watched Jack. She watched Kasumi, Legion, Mordin, Samara and Zaeed. She left Jacob. Hated Jacob…

"_But the price…"_

She shivered. Hated Jacob. She did watch Miranda though.

She looked around at her surroundings, instantly realising where she was. She was standing on top of the rooftop of one of the houses in Benning. She wondered what she was doing here. Benning was introduced in the third game. They hadn't even done the events of the second game yet. She hadn't even thought of where she was jumping when she jumped into the photo, escaping from Cerberus.

She grinned. Cerberus.

She would enjoy working for them. She hated working for the Alliance Navy. She worked under the order of the rudest man ever who expressed 'human-centric' views almost every minute of every day. Major Ashur Vilkrans. She guessed the reason that he was ruder to her than to everyone else in her unit was because she fucked his brother. Oh well.

A strong breeze suddenly blew her hair; strands of dark chocolate brown were now blowing in the wind. She looked down at her watch, an invention she made herself after getting the idea from a Spy Kids film she watched back in her own time and world. The watch was a watch, but more. It had a radio, map if she wanted, GPS and so many more things that she had already forgotten and she had only made it a few months ago. Good thing she had a guide in it saying what she had put into it.

The time read 10:40am and she sighed. It was still too early to go to Omega like she wanted to pawn some things off that she had bought from her own time with her. Good thing she had another of her inventions with her. Her pit-less bag, an idea she had gotten from an anime 'Fairy Tail'. She missed watching her animes and was glad that she could just jump back to her time to grab them.

She liked this time much better than her own. It was more fun, more dangerous. She would be who she wanted to be without her family telling her otherwise. She would be herself and not put on her mask.

She would be free. She would be…

Acacia Nerkai, the 16 year old jumper.


	2. Chapter 1

Wandering around Omega wearing a short-sleeved dark blue t-shirt, a black leather jacket, black ripped jeans with a silver chain dangling from the side and black combat boots, Acacia was attracting a lot of unwanted attention. Why wouldn't she? She was wearing clothes from her own time and would be classed as something a rich person in this time would have, and being classed as a rich person on Omega while looking unarmed was definitely a bad thing.

Good thing Acacia wasn't really unarmed. She had a couple of weapons tucked away in her bag, which she had slugged over her right shoulder, not to mention the Swiss Army knife in her right boot. She spotted a group of Turians standing over in the corner staring at her, and she rolled her eyes, thinking of how they were probably human-haters. She herself loved Turians, with them ranking as her favourite alien race, followed by Drells and Quarians.

"Little young, aren't you... _Human._"

Acacia paused, and came to a stop in front of the Hanar whom she wanted to sell her things to. The voice was Turian, who was maybe in their late twenties, early thirties. She could see him out of the corner of her eye. He had pale green plates, white markings and light brown eyes. There was a scar than ran from his left eye down to his mouth. By the scar, she could tell that he was a strong fighter. Most all Turians were, anyway.

"I'm a little young for what?" Acacia asked tilting her head, her eyes full of confusion.

"To be on Omega alone and unarmed. You humans can't protect yourselves. Too soft and mushy,"

Acacia thought of herself as many things, but mushy was definitely not one of them. Indeed, humans were softer than Turians, with them not having any plates to protect them, but they did know how to protect themselves. And she definitely knew how to protect herself. She sighed loudly and ran her hand through her long, chocolate brown hair.

"I never said I was unarmed, _old-man._ Humans may be… as you said 'soft' and 'mushy' but we can do things that you Turians couldn't in your entire existence. So, do you want to brawl with me? To show that you could beat a human, _female_ teenager. It shouldn't too hard, I mean, you do send your children off to military training every young."

As Acacia finished speaking, she could hear the Turian growling, the noise echoed off the walls around them. She smirked and stared at him. She could see it in his eyes, he wanted to kill her. On a normal day, she would have actually brawled with the man, but today she needed to sell her stuff and find someone.

"I don't have time for you Turian, I need to find someone. Why don't you go back home to your mate?" Acacia said, staring at the mating marks across the Turian's neck. She didn't wait for him to answer; she just turned and walked towards the Hanar who had watched the whole thing. She pulled a few of her things out of her bag and flung them onto the counter. To say that the Hanar wasn't going to buy her stuffs was most definitely a lie.

_(Time Skip)_

Acacia rolled her shoulders slightly and stretched her legs. Crawling around in the air ducks was something she swore she was never going to do again, but knowing her luck, she'd probably have to in the near future, anyway. No one else in Nayera's team was small enough to crawl in the air ducks and with Acacia standing at four feet, six inches with a tiny frame; she would to be the only option.

The only reason Acacia was going around crawling in the air ducks, was due to the fact that she was looking for someone. The only thing she knew about this person was that they were a teenager around her age. She didn't know their gender, not even their race. Thus the exploring she had done in the air ducks was for nothing. She rubbed her hands across her knees, and brushed away the dust that was on her jeans and stood back up, looking around the people around her. She was in the lower part of Afterlife. _Great!_

Acacia sighed and spun around on her heels to face the stairs leading down into the wards, there was no way that she was going to be seen by Aria again, she didn't want the hassle of her 'jobs'. Walking through the club, her combat boots made a clanging noise as the metal of the boots hit against the metal of the floor, and the noise, despite the loud thump of the music, caused a few heads to turn her way. Unfriendly heads. Humans were still not a race a lot of the other races trusted, and here in Omega… it was mostly ninety percent of the population. She walked towards the bar, and fully intended to get herself wasted, despite the fact that she was underage, and the fact that she was so tiny didn't help matters. She just hoped that due to the fact that she was human, the Batarian behind the bar wouldn't question it. She nodded her head at him and leant against the bar,

"Give me something strong." She muttered, trailing her eyes across the bar top. Under the thick lights, Acacia could see a thin line of blood running across the bar top. It was red in colour, and there was only one race that bled red. "Tell me, how many times humans have been in fights down here?" she asked, staring at the Batarian as he slid her drink across the bar towards her. His eyes flickered to a corner of the club and she narrowed her eyes, the Batarian knew about the blood, she was sure of that. She pressed the palm of her hand against the bar top, and felt the blood, wet and still warm against her hand.

"This blood is fresh," she said, "so clearly it wasn't too long ago. Now tell me, what is it that you know?"

The Batarian sighed and rubbed his hands together, clearly he was not as brutal and unfriendly as others Acacia had come across. "The human fought with a Turian about ten minutes before you arrived. He's still here, sitting over there," he said, pausing to point the man out for her. He sat in the corner with a few other Turians around him. He had light brown plates and fading blue clan markings.

Due to the fact that she could tell that this Turian was about the same age as the Turian who she had almost had to tangle with earlier, it was clear this one had left his clan behind, but left his markings to fade in their own time. She muttered her thanks to the Batarian and downed her drink before making her way towards the Turian. He looked up at her, clearly hearing her coming his way; with his Turian hearing and the clanging of her combat boots.

Acacia stopped in front of him and licked her lips, watching the way his dark green eyes followed her tongue. She smirked lightly and stared at him, and lifted her hand to flick her hair over her shoulder. Under the poor lighting, she could see a thin layer of red on the Turian's fingers. She stood up straight and crossed her arms over her chest, her hands tucked under with the strap of her bag held firmly in place. The Turian stared at her emotionless while the other Turians around him snarled at her.

"Turian. I see you have a bit of blood on you there. Red blood," Acacia said, a faint grin on her face.

The Turian shrugged, his arms resting on the back of the seat, "What of it? The human shouldn't have tried to poke her nose into my business."

"Ah." Acacia muttered. So, the human that had fought with the Turian was a female. Pretty bold of her. She couldn't help but think that the human was the one she was meant to find. The only way she'd find that out is if she found the human and asked her the phrase that had been given to her.

Acacia narrowed her eyes at the Turian who was finishing off his drink. She slammed her hands on his table causing every head in the club to turn towards her.

"Where is the girl?"

The Turian pressed the glass against his mouth once more and nodded his head at something behind her. Acacia looked over her shoulder, there stood the girl. Long dark hair was draping down her back, pieces of fringe framed around her face. She had high cheekbones and thick eyelashes that surrounded empty ice-grey eyes. She was taller than her, about five foot and three inches, and looked slightly older. Maybe eighteen or nineteen. She was wearing what looked like a plain black, strappy top, with a denim vest, and plain denim jeans.

Acacia looked down at the bloody bandage that was tightly wrapped around the girl's hand. She looked back up at the girl's face, who was staring back at her with those empty eyes and decided to try and see if this was the person she had been looking for.

"When the moon is coated in red…" she started.

Without a moment's pause, the girl replied, "Valkyries come out and play."

Acacia grinned and nodded at her, "What's your name?"

"Chandler. Jenn Chandler."


End file.
